Greater New Orleans

Beatlemania comes to Covington with "Trying to Get to You" on Jan. 27-29

You are invited to step back in time almost 50 years and have some laughs along the way during the performance of “Trying to Get to You,” a play about Beatlemania, to be performed Jan. 27-29.

The play will be presented at the Greater Covington Center’s Fuhrmann Auditorium, 317 N. Jefferson Ave. Performances begin at 7 p.m. on Friday and Saturday, and at 2 p.m. on Sunday.

In this comedy, set in 1964, Linda and Kathy, two 16-year-old best friends and devout fans of the Fab Four, commit their entire summer to trying to win tickets to a sold-out Beatles performance. Among the obstacles between the girls and their prize is Sandy, another teenager and arch-rival.

The play, which will be premiering in Covington, was written and directed by Peggy Aultman, a seventh- and eighth-grade language arts teacher at Christ Episcopal School who directs the school’s drama productions.

Linda and Kathy are played by Madison Monroe and Leah Bell, both students at Christ Episcopal School and at the New Orleans Center for the Creative Arts. Both girls have appeared numerous times on stage in other plays, according to Aultman.

“They are incredibly talented,” she said. Describing how especially gratifying it is to direct her own play, Aultman said: “It’s a wonderful experience, as it gives me the opportunity to cast the play with people who portray the characters just as I had pictured them.”

Supporting cast members in the play are Caroline Clark as Sandy, Ed Morvant as the local radio disc jockey, Mimi Knight as Mrs. Fischer, and Kirk Benson as Mr. Fischer. Each of them are veterans of the stage and have extensive resumes, Aultman said.

“I wrote this play based on my personal memories of Beatlemania, and I added experiences that others had related to me,” she said. “I wanted to write a play that would capture that wonderfully innocent time.”

In love with words and writing from a young age, Aultman got involved with community theater as an adult. Putting the two loves together some years later, she wrote other plays, including “Best Kept Secrets,” a murder mystery; a one-act play, “Motherless Child,” which has been featured at several festivals across the country, and a few one-act plays for children.

Of her upcoming play, Aultman said, “I hope it will appeal to many different theater-goers because it’s basically about two characters who take all of their youthful energy and focus it on one goal.”

Even though in this story, it’s two teenage girls trying to obtain tickets to a sold-out Beatles’ concert, Aultman said, “I think most of us can relate to that time in our youth when we could allow one thing to consume our thoughts and fantasies, whether it was training to make a sports team, planning a cross-country camping trip, or just building a fort. It’s a time that can’t be reclaimed.”